We attended a performance last night at the Philadelphia Orchestra of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I won't pretend to know the violin soloist's name. He was a middle-aged Italian man, tall and slender. Nor will I attempt to judge his effort. It sounded wonderful, and I know too little to qualify as a judge otherwise. But his work reenforced my belief that to play a violin very well has to be one of the most, if not the most, fulfilling of human activities, particularly when the instrument is one of the finest ever made. A violin, cradled in the arm and tucked under the chin, seems to be about as intimate as any musical instrument can be. I imagine that the vibration, the resonance of the thin, curved wood, the maple and ash and spruce, has to be like the breathing and pulse of a living being, and to hear those sounds so closely, to physically envelop them with arms and hands and chest and cheek, seems as if it would be the equal of -- and perhaps superior to -- the best love-making. The  violin whispers, it swells, it soothes and stimulates. In another life . . .